Research Week looks to investigate Pokemon that have potential in Ubers, be it in stats, movepool, or supporting their team, to serve as an innovative choice in today's metagame. These are Pokemon that, for the most part, remain relatively untested. I've selected 3 Pokemon I feel, with help from everyone else, could see the rise of new and powerful sets, or the fulfilment of a particular niche. Perhaps the title is a bit of a misnomer; in fact, this installment (and likely future ones) of Research Week will continue as long as the discussion does, and that's where you all come in.

If you have anything to say about any of these Pokemon, please post about them! It doesn't matter if you've used them or have just faced them in battle, anything is fine (but please, do try them). Just be sure to back up your posts with good competitive reasoning, such as damage calculations! Posting replays showcasing the pokemon you selected is especially encouraged.

• Be open-minded, don't just say something is terrible and walk away; at least look into them and see what options they may be able to utilize!
• Feel free to theorymon, but make it clear that you are theorymon'ing. At the end of the week, however, I want discussion to move towards how useful the Pokemon actually are in Uber, and what sets are effective on them.
• Just because an analysis has been done for a Pokemon doesn't mean there isn't more to explore; it's quite possible that something might have gone unnoticed or is missing.
• Do not post in this thread complaining about the Pokemon I choose and/or suggesting ones we should do for future weeks. I want discussion to stay on topic about the 3 Pokemon we are "researching". Feel free to VM / PM me these suggestions, but don't expect the next research week to have all the Pokemon you suggested, or any of them.

This Research Week is a BIT different than the others. Pokemon Black 2 and White 2 are coming out soon, so to promote that, this isn't going to be done on the Ubers ladder... Instead, to promote the future of competitive Pokemon, this will be a DREAM WORLD UBERS research week! And to kick the newness factor up even higher, the 3 Pokemon we will be testing this week aren't even released yet, aka Keldeo, Meloetta, and Genesect!

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How useful are these Pokemon in Uber? What sets can they run effectively? What gives them trouble? What advantages do they have over other Pokemon? What roles can they fill in teams? Are they worth the team slot on your team or is it outclassed?

Discuss; the discussion that come out of this will surely be illuminating! Don't forget, you're not just limited to this topic to discuss these Pokemon. The #ubers irc channel is a perfectly suitable place to discuss them as well. Feel free to take the discussion to #pokemon as well. At the end of the discussion period, hope we can reach a general consensus on how good these Pokemon really are, and that we might find some interesting discoveries.

Alright, now that that's out of the way we can get to the fun part of this. First up, Reasearch Week will now have a duration of roughly two weeks. The reason for this is as follows:

The Research Week Challenge:

Users will use any number of the research week mons on their team

Users will attempt to reach as high as possible on the ladder with the Pokemon. Breaking past the 1350 mark on the ladder with your registered alt will earn you a spot on the Hall of Fame: Gold Class. Crossing the 1300 mark will secure you a Silver Class spot while a 1250 rating will earn you a Bronze Class spot. Post a screen-shot of your peak in order to achieve this, and a pastebin of your team.

Users will be expected to post their experiences with the pokemon they use, the teams they used, the problems they encoutered while trying to make the said pokemon work.

If a user does not participate in the discussion, he will be passed over.

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In order to participate in the challenge, simply post what Pokemon you're trying and your fresh new alt (yes, this is mandatory). Post battle logs, experiences with your team on the ladder, and generally how a Pokemon has worked out for you: past or present.

It has been noticed that the last few Research Weeks have been basically reduced to ladder runs. This completely defeats the purpose of Research Week where the idea is NOT TO see if a person can get a high ladder rating with an underused Pokemon but to subjectively assess as a community, whether that particular Pokemon is viable in the tier and discover its potential in the tier. In order to remedy this, an archive is going to be created including the past Research Week, highlighting great posts. From this Research Week onward, the most thoughtful researcher will also be rewarded alongside the user with the highest ladder rating. The reward scheme will be the same.

Rewards:

Winning the Research Week challenge grants you prizes. Here's the rewarding system:

Winning one RW will grant you VOPs (+) in #ubers.

Winning two RW challenges will grant you a larger avatar.

Winning three RW challenges will grant you a Custom Title.

Winning five RW challenges will grant you HOPs (%) in #ubers.

* You might get a Custom Title for winning two RW challenges, and a larger avatar for winning three.
** Getting HOPs in #ubers might take four wins, and maybe more, depending on our judgment if you deserve it or not.

Furthermore, quality posting may be rewarded with larger avatars or custom titles, even if you did not win the challenge. So get out and post!​

From past experience Genosect has been pretty amazing in ubers due to its great speed and download as an ability. It's bulk leaves much to be desired but if you're switching Genosect into hits you are playing it wrong. I used one on a rain team a bit ago with a set of U-turn / Thunder / Ice beam / Flamethrower. It's also quite strong and has amazing typing and pokemon walls such as groudon and lugia struggle against this guy since with LO and a download boost it can 2HKO Lugia after Rocks and OHKO Groudon. Honestly a good pokemon and hope other people also enjoy using him! Will edit post after trying Keldeo

My main concern for this Research Week is that due to the minute number of people that play DW Ubers consistently, we might get biased results as the people participating in this RW will probably face each other more often than not. This may cause bias because if the participants face each other quite often, we will see results showing how the tested Pokemon fares against a Non-Standard Metagame. Aren't we testing how viable these Pokemon are in the Standard Uber Metagame (Which in this case would be the DW Uber Metagame)?

What I mean by a Non-StandardMetagame is a metagame where everyone uses these uncommon Pokemon. It is to be noted though that the Smogon DW Uber stats are already quite biased. To put this in context, Charizard has more usage than Giratina-O. These are just some of my thoughts.

EDIT: Like superstar said, it is very difficult to find a battle on Smogon DW Ubers. For instance, I spent 43 minutes trying to find a battle. Just to be noted.

It is not a huge surprise to see that our nominees, with the exception of Meloetta (sorry, girl), are already intensely viable in DW Ubers, and would surely be used if released. This research week is unique, the same rules still apply, but take into account that DW Ubers is largely unplayed and, as a result, underdeveloped.

Curiously enough, your post solves the problem presented by itself; the fact that Charizard has more usage than Giratina-O means that by encouraging play in DW Ubers we'll hopefully be able to develop the metagame itself. The encouraged usage of three 'uncommon' Pokemon does not prevent people from trying out the new fruit that DW Ubers offers, and from what I can see here most people are just using Genesect, which will almost undoubtedly be a staple DW Uber choice due to its fantastic abilities as a scarfer (being able to revenge kill Mewtwo, Rayquaza, Kyogre, weakened Extremekiller, something no other scarfer can do.)

Keldeo and Meloetta are really mostly outclassed in what they do imo. I don't really see why you could want to use Keldeo over Manaphy, and it really can get revenge killed easily and walled too, it can't do much at all to Groudon, Giratina, and Lugia.

Genesect looks to be promising because it can revenge kill many threats and has a fast high-powered U-Turn to hit on the physical side too.

Keldeo is much more powerful than Manaphy, though. +1 LO Hydro Pump will sodomise pretty much everything that it hits. In fact, with a Life Orb, +1 Hydro Pump from Keldeo actually does more than a +3 Surf (without LO) from Manaphy. On top of that, Keldeo can afford to run Life Orb to compromise its bulk slightly because it gets +1 SpD from Calm Mind, meaning it's not as easily revenge killed. I can't see how Groudon and Lugia wall it either. Groudon is easily OHKOed by +1 Hydro Pump and Lugia is easily OHKOed in the rain by +1 Hydro Pump. I guess you are countered or at the least checked by Giratina, but hey, Giratina counters everything so it's not that should be too big of an issue. This is not mention you can use a handy little thing in DW Ubers called Chandelure to trap and severely dent it. Even standard Giratina-O takes 64.40% - 75.96% from +1 Hydro Pump. This is not even mentioning Secret Sword shenanigans to completely wipe Ferrothorn off the map. Keldeo would also seem like a pretty cool Specs user too. While Kyogre is more powerful and Palkia has better STABs, Keldeo has ability to kill Blissey and Chansey at any percent of its HP while being faster than the two. It also resists SR, giving it more chances to switch in and out.

As for Meloetta, after I've had enough with Genesect, I WILL attempt to try and find it a niche somewhere. I have a few ideas, but something tells me she's going to end up just like our RW5 Pokemon, close to having a niche but just not good enough. I would try out my "mixed" set from Dream World OU, but I have doubts about that. She can also run Trick Room, but I don't know how that would work out, while Calm Mind would just seem outclassed by Calm Mind Normal Arceus, so I probably wouldn't bother with that.

Specs Keldeo doesn't seem that impressive tbh. I would much rather use much harder hitters like Kyogre or Reshiram. The HP isn't even much of a problem with some support.

Calm Mind is probably going to be Keldeo's best bet. While Secret Sword is cool, I think the ability that Manaphy has to beat Scarf Thunderers (hint: these things are really common) really gives it an edge over Keldeo, but of course Keldeo is less easily walled by stuff like Ferrothorn and hits harder.

I peaked with Meloetta in the 1250 :D (see hide tag). What I'd like to say is its INSANELY HARD LADDERING -_-. It takes like 9999 times longer to find a battle on DW then on normal, hence it takes tons of patience (a object that I believe I lack).

Now onto stuff about meloetta, I used this set.

Hide(Move your mouse to the hide area to reveal the content)Show HideHide Hide

In conjunction with a lot of hazards and phazing (or semi-stall) I was able to weaken a lot of teams to the point where Meloetta could sweep. It's not exactly the strongest thing around but its extremely fast. Base 128 speed is nothing to scoff at, and I tried to take advantage of that with this set. It gets STAB with Frustration while the rest of the moves provide coverage. I need Relic Song to access Step Form and that nice speed so its there for that.

Honestly, I don't think Meloetta is that useful though, its fast and strong, but so is every other swift swimmer / Chlorophyl Abuser, I felt a Kingdra would've been much better on my team over this solely because of the fact I don't need a turn to set up. I suppose this could work for weatherless offense though (if that even exists).

When looking at other pokes on research week...

Genesect in my opinion needs to be compared more to Hydregion. Why Hydregion? Both fire off extremely powerful special attacks while carrying U-turn to keep up offensive pressure(which to a HO playstyle is invaluable) if a switch is predicted. Lastly, both have the bulk that is the equivalent of a paper bag (I do not want to send my Genesect in to a Draco Meteor (which is bad for a steel)).

Another huge thing that concerns Genesect is the beast that is Chandelure. Chandelure can switch into virtually any of genesect moves (barring U-turn since it won't be trapped then) take the weak hit, and release flames that will burn down Genesect, leaving a permanent scar for the team against the poltergeist.

Ok now with the stuff said I think Genesect has severe competition for that spot against Hydregion. Hydregion can't be trapped by Chandelure and OHKOed, due to its nice typing, and it also has levitate to keep its feet safe from Spikes and Toxic Spikes. It also gets STAB Draco Meteor, something Genesect longs for. Genesect on the other hand only has download and STAB Bug moves,the ever useful steel-typing, and a base speed stat increase of 1. I think thats enough to give it its own niche as a Scarfed Revenge Killer. Other sets, in my opinion, are outclassed. Steel Arceus has better stats then it, actual bulk, better movepool, and the ability to stomach Specs Draco Meteors to allow it to beat Genesect in terms of an offensive steel (they also have the same attack bases (don't talk about download since its just a bit unreliable IMO).

Keldeo is just an inferior Mewtwo in my opinion, but with better stabs. This means Keldeo's only true space on a team has to be on one where there's a Kyogre and / or there's a Mewtwo (think double dragon that had mence and quaza instead with Keldeo and Mewtwo). I think Keldeo's role is actually pretty secure here since +1 Hydro Pump hits so hard, and even the blobs can't wall it due to sacred sword, that and making a core with Keldeo and Mewtwo sounds like a great idea to help the other sweep (THIS IS THEORYMON THOUGH). You can't compare it with Manaphy since its screwed when the sun comes out where Keldeo isn't so much (its got that secret sword).

My main concern for this Research Week is that due to the minute number of people that play DW Ubers consistently, we might get biased results as the people participating in this RW will probably face each other more often than not. This may cause bias because if the participants face each other quite often, we will see results showing how the tested Pokemon fares against a Non-Standard Metagame. Aren't we testing how viable these Pokemon are in the Standard Uber Metagame (Which in this case would be the DW Uber Metagame)?

What I mean by a Non-StandardMetagame is a metagame where everyone uses these uncommon Pokemon. It is to be noted though that the Smogon DW Uber stats are already quite biased. To put this in context, Charizard has more usage than Giratina-O. These are just some of my thoughts.

EDIT: Like superstar said, it is very difficult to find a battle on Smogon DW Ubers. For instance, I spent 43 minutes trying to find a battle. Just to be noted.

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I saw this post from my iPhone last night, and this is something I just have to reply to.

Standard Ubers is not the only Ubers. We also take control of Dream World Ubers. Sure, it is not an official metagame, but that's the point of this. We also try to recover Dream World Ubers. I understand that the amount of battles there are just low, and the players may not be skilled, but that's why we are all here -- to pick that tier up to an elite level.

Hope I got that cleared, and I'm very glad to see a lot of Theorymon discussion, in which I will participate after I have a few battles!